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What To Know
- TCM’s January schedule features a diverse lineup including musicals, film noir classics, and dramas about working-class struggles, such as Norma Rae and Silkwood.
- This week highlights tributes to lyricist Sammy Cahn with Frank Sinatra films, a Tuesday series on real-life working-class heroes, and a spotlight on actor Louis Hayward’s adventure and crime roles.
TCM starts the new year with a schedule that has a little bit of something for everybody, from musicals to film noir to raw dramas about the real-life struggles of workers who fought their bosses for safer working conditions.
This week, look forward to Sally Field‘s Oscar-winning turn as a factory worker who demands better conditions in Norma Rae; Silkwood, the drama that netted Cher her first Oscar nomination and let the world know that she was more than just a pop star dabbling in Hollywood; Frank Sinatra musicals including The Tender Trap and Robin and the 7 Hoods; an evening of classic film noir featuring Double Indemnity, The Killers, and Joan Crawford‘s Mildred Pierce; Elvis’ Double Trouble, and much more. Even if you’re feeling like a living icicle, and are about to have your first full work week since Christmas, there will be something on TCM this week to make you smile.
Monday, January 5
Sammy Cahn — Part 1
Beginning at 8pm
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“Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!” “Love and Marriage.” “High Hopes.” These are a few of the many memorable songs by prolific lyricist, musician and Songwriters Hall of Fame member Sammy Cahn. He was nominated for a record 26 Oscars for Original Song, winning four. For the next two Mondays, TCM honors Cahn with movies featuring many of his timeless classics, beginning tonight with those showcasing the actor/singer Cahn is most closely associated with: Frank Sinatra. Enjoy Three Coins in the Fountain (1954), The Tender Trap (1955), 1964’s Robin and the 7 Hoods (showcasing “My Kind of Town” and a Cahn/Jimmy Van Heusen Grammy-nominated film score), 1945’s Anchors Aweigh (“I Fall in Love Too Easily”) and 1947’s It Happened in Brooklyn (“Time After Time”).
Tuesday, January 6
TCM Special Theme: The Working Class: True Stories
Beginning at 8pm
They work hard for their money and TCM treats them right every Tuesday in January with films saluting the working class. Tonight, what better way to begin this tribute than with stories about real-life working-class heroes? The courageous women who took a stand against worker safety violations at a plutonium plant are portrayed in Oscar-nominated performances by Meryl Streep and Cher in Silkwood (1983) and, in the TCM premiere North Country (2005), Charlize Theron gives an inspiring portrayal of the miner who won America’s first major sexual harassment case against her employer. Working in a mine remains the theme when workers daring to strike against their companies are shown in Salt of the Earth (1954) and Harlan County U.S.A. (1976). Unionization is the struggle of 1920s West Virginia mine laborers in Matewan (1987), as it is in Sally Field’s Oscar-winning depiction of textile worker Norma Rae (1979), the opening film of this programming theme. Union!
Wednesday, January 7
TCM Spotlight: Starring Louis Hayward
Beginning at 8pm
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On film, he was a pirate, a saint and a criminal. Actor Louis Hayward, known for his roles in swashbuckler adventure films and crime drama movies, is featured tonight in a tribute that includes both genres. Born in 1909 and raised in South Africa, Hayward began his stage and screen career in England by working with playwright Noël Coward, first there and subsequently on Broadway. Hollywood beckoned with an MGM contract for Hayward in 1935. Notably, the actor was the first Simon Templar of The Saint film series with The Saint in New York (1938), shown tonight, though other film commitments prevented him from continuing in the role until 1953. In between, he starred in period swashbuckler dramas (airing tonight) such as The Man in the Iron Mask (1939); Captain Pirate (1952), the second of two films where he played author Rafael Sabatini’s Capt. Blood character; and, in a TCM premiere, The Black Arrow (1948). In this film, based on the Robert Louis Stevenson novel of the same name, Hayward plays a 15th century nobleman fighting against his ambitious and cruel uncle. The evening rounds out with two of the actor’s crime films, Repeat Performance (1947) and Duffy of San Quentin (1954), making it a noir late night with Louis Hayward.
Thursday, January 8
Star of the Month: Jean Arthur
Beginning at 8pm
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Turner Classic Movies’ Thursday night salute to the froggy-voiced Jean Arthur continues tonight. The Academy Award nominee was known for several comedies in the 1930s and 1940s, a few of which start the evening, including 1937’s Easy Living and the more darker buddy comedy History is Made at Night. Immediately following is Arthur’s breakthrough role: at age 34, she starred in John Ford‘s The Whole Town’s Talking (1935), a gangster farce where she portrayed a coworker of Edward G. Robinson, who appears in dual roles as a mild-mannered clerk and the gangster he closely resembles. Her film marathon continues late into the evening with Too Many Husbands (1940) and Public Hero No. 1 (1935).
Friday, January 9
TCM Spotlight: Flashback Fridays
Beginning at 8pm
In this edition of TCM’s Flashback Fridays, where the film’s stories are told through flashbacks, the network concentrates on some of the best films from the 1940s. Indulge in Double Indemnity (1944), nominated for seven Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director for Billy Wilder and Best Actress for Barbara Stanwyck. Stanwyck’s performance as a scheming seductress who convinces an insurance salesman (Fred MacMurray) to do away with her husband after the latter signs a double indemnity clause in his life insurance policy is a must-see. Next is The Killers (1946), starring Burt Lancaster and Ava Gardner in another Oscar-nominated tale, based on an Ernest Hemingway short story, of murder and treachery involving a beautiful woman. Then get lost in 1945’s Mildred Pierce, starring Joan Crawford in an Oscar-winning performance as a mother who, despite her best efforts to support a spoiled, selfish daughter, eventually gets caught up in a complex web of murder and intrigue. The evening’s other “flashback” films are The Locket (1946), starring Robert Mitchum, and 1949’s D.O.A., with Edmond O’Brien.
Saturday, January 10
TCM Musical Matinee: Double Trouble
12pm
In this frothy, formulaic but fun 1967 Elvis Presley movie, the King, as singer Guy Lambert, gets to tour Europe and, while there, becomes the love interest of two beautiful women (the aforementioned “double trouble”), one a teenage heiress (Annette Day), the other a sophisticated socialite (Yvonne Romain). Along the way, he gets mixed up with some bumbling jewel thieves (would there be any other kind?), and sings “Long Legged Girl (With the Short Dress On)” and, unbelievably, “Old MacDonald.” It’s ’60s swing with the King!
Sunday, January 11
Mr. and Mrs.: Marriage and Money
11:45 am
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Growing up and getting hitched is murder (sometimes literally) in this collection of films about folks who don’t quite find their happily ever after. First up, in 1944’s Mrs. Parkington, Greer Garson plays the title character, a wealthy society matron reflecting back on the many dramatic years after she, a poor country girl, married a mine owner with an explosive temper. Then, in Charlie Chaplin controversial Monsier Verdoux (1947), the legendary funnyman plays a down-on-his luck banker who supports his family the old-fashioned way: by becoming a bigamist and murdering the wealthy widows that he marries! Chaplin wrote, starred and directed this black comedy, with a story credit by Orson Welles; whether it was the film’s dark nature or Chaplin’s recent personal controversies, it was savaged by the critics at the time, but has since been considered one of the greatest films of the 20th century.
Then, Joan Crawford stars opposite future second husband Franchot Tone in 1934 pre-Code drama Sadie McKee, playing a young maid who runs off to the big city and eventual marries a wealthy alcoholic, while never quite able to forget the man who ran out on her. Finally, the program ends with the mother of all marriage-for-money dramas: 1949’s Madame Bovary, starring Jennifer Jones as the titular troubled heroine, who sees her fantasies of life as woman of leisure dashed by reality as she marries (and cheats with) a series of supposedly wealthy men.
Click here to download the printable January 2026 TCM schedule.